What is a fork? How long does the fork date back to? Where was the fork used for the first time? When was the fork introduced? Who invented the fork first? What are the connections between cutlery and table manners? What was the name of Fork when it was first invented...
What is Fork? History of Fork...
What is a fork? How long does the fork date back to? Where was the fork used for the first time? When was the fork introduced? Who invented the fork first? What are the connections between cutlery and table manners? What was the name of Fork when it was first invented ? How many blades was the first Fork? When did the fork come into use?
Table Manners Spreading From Istanbul to the World; "FORK"
İrfan YALIN
One of the main utensils of our table, along with the fork, knife and spoon, is the last thing that comes to the table in the historical process...
In order to facilitate human life, he took nature as an example, and began to use the functions of his limbs by increasing them on the tools he made. The palm of his hand set an example for the spoon he carved from wood thousands of years ago, and inspired the ladles of construction machinery after the development of technology. In the same way, the holding power of his fingers, the force of his fist, the sharp side of his hand, the clenching feature of his teeth inspired different designs in daily life requirements, and brought to life the functional features exemplified by modern technology.
The fork is one of them, perhaps the most visible, similar to fingers.
What is Fork? History of Fork...
In the sources I used to write the cultural
History Of Gastronomy of the fork, it is written that the oldest fork-like apparatuses were seen in Ancient Egypt between 2400 and 1900 BC - although there is no complete consensus. In this ancient period of Egyptian civilization, large bronze forks were used in religious ceremonies to remove sacrificial offerings.
The fork belonging to the Greek Civilization, dated to the 7th century AD, was used in religious rituals.
It is stated in the studies on this subject that the fork was also seen in the Ancient Chinese civilization in prehistory, and the people of Oijia, whose origins and fate after 551 BC are unknown, also used a fork-like apparatus while eating.
Although historical records show that forks were used as part of the cooking process, the historical story of the widespread use of forks could not go as far back as knives and spoons. The word "fork" is derived from the Latin word "furca", which means "fork", which we know as a long-handled, iron or wood, forked hand tool used to spread crop stalks in the threshing. It's not a very positive word; The word "furcifer", which was used frequently among the people in the Middle Ages, was said for the prisoners who were taken to be hanged.
Forks were also used by the Greeks and Romans, especially in ceremonies, fork-like tools were used to remove the meat from the boiling pot and hold it steady while cutting it into pieces. In the Roman period, fork-like tools were used for similar purposes and agricultural activities, and even forks became a visual part of the offerings made to the gods.
It is seen in the drawings of the period when forks were used in the Eastern Roman civilization based in Istanbul and in the records that have survived to the present day.
The first appearance of the fork in table manners was in Istanbul.
Although there are some findings of the use of forks in the records dating to the 7th century on Middle Eastern royal tables, there is a consensus in historical studies that the first examples of the use of forks while eating at the table as we understand it today were seen in Istanbul and dispersed through Italy, starting from Istanbul. The marriage between the royal families, which was cut in order to create a balance between Eastern Rome, the center of the Orthodox World, and Venice, the symbol of the Catholic power of the time, also caused the fork to be seen in Europe for the first time.
The first use of a modern fork in Europe was the Byzantine Emperor II, born in Istanbul, who lived in Venice between 1004-1005. It is attributed to Basil's niece, Maria Argyropoulina. Maria, Duke of Venice II, to strengthen the political ties between the two powers. She was a Byzantine princess who married Pietro Orseolo's son, Giovanni Otto, and she had great problems because she took the habits of her life in Istanbul, which has a much more developed daily life comfort than the city of Venice and even other Western cities.
The way Maria of Istanbul wears silk and jewellery, burning herbs with incense, bathing in rain water, and using the gold fork she took out of her special box while eating were found to be extremely unusual in the Venetian Palace and filled the eyes with hatred. The Church, which spewed out the hatred of the Byzantine state for sectarian differences over the "fork", excommunicated the fork by saying, "God gave man natural forks, namely fingers, and using a fork instead of fingers while eating is equivalent to irreligion."
In an article describing those days, the Benedictine monk Peter Damian wrote of Maria that “he did not touch his food with his hands, but after cutting the meat into pieces with a knife, he gently brought it to his mouth with a small double-pronged gold fork.” Maria's bad fate was associated with the use of a fork by the Vatican Church, and the reason for her death was attributed to her use of a fork.
In the 9th century AD, Persian nobles were also using Forks.
The relentless illness he caught at a young age was seen as a punishment for his sins, and the use of a fork was perceived as an insult to nature and condemned as having a corrupting effect. In the superstitions that emerged after his death, warning nonsense about the need to be careful about the corrupt customs of the East was told through the “fork”, and the use of forks was cursed for a long time.
What happened in this period of history was seen in the drawings in the form of a pitchfork given to the devil's hand, and this new enemy was called the Venetian fork.
The driving force in the use of pasta forks
The spread of pasta, which was distributed to Europe via Sicily, also encouraged the use of forks. In fact, the technique of producing dried pasta originated in the Arab World and was carried inland through Muslim-occupied Sicily around 800 AD. Pasta cuts made in Sicily and Sardinia in the 2nd century AD potentially increased future fork use in different regions that consumed this food.
The use of cutlery, which the church pressed with the statement "God gave man natural forks, that is, his fingers, therefore it is an insult to use a fork when he has fingers", could only appear 300 years later in Europe on the tables of the nobles and the rich. It is said that Catherine de Medici came to France, where she came to marry Henry II, with a 2-pronged fork. It is interesting; In these years, almost all of the forks were single- or double-ended.
What is Fork? History of Fork...The use of cutlery , which began to be seen among traders at the beginning of the 1300s, made it normal for people to have forks made for themselves and to carry them with them . It has added sanitary privilege to rich tables with its personalized uses.
Between 1364 and 1380, King Charles V of France had silver and gold forks that he could use to bring food such as mulberry into his mouth that could stain his fingers. Interestingly, the use of forks has been limited to places where pasta is eaten, and using two or three-prong forks instead of dipping pasta pieces into single-ended sticks has made life easier. The practice was soon adopted in Italy and some parts of Spain, but the use of the fork was limited to eating pasta only .
The fork was found dangerous, feminine and demonic
The use of forks, which started to be mentioned in cookbooks published in the 1400s, has been the subject of ridicule and gossip from time to time because of the spills by unfamiliar people; has been rumored.
The fork, which is used only for eating pasta, was perceived in a very different way outside of Italy's pasta-eating regions in these years, and it was not found natural and healthy to be used on the table. In England and France, the cutlery was seen as feminine, against table manners, and even dangerous. King of France III, who lived between 1519-1559. Henry was ridiculed for scooping the peas and beans from his plate to his mouth with a fork.
Known for his engravings of Istanbul and Ottoman life, Thomas Artus was found to be feminine in 1605 because he used a fork, and it became the subject of ridicule. The use of forks in Germany was perceived as belonging to contradictory voices such as Martin Luther, and was seen as close to Satan's pitchfork.
In 1611, the English traveler, Thomas Coryat, stated that he saw a tradition that was not used in any other country during his trip to Italy and stated that this was the use of forks. Coryat described Italians as a modern people who see touching meat as bad behavior and desire to keep their fingertips clean.
Despite the frequent use of the term "furcifer", which combines these lines with fork and disgrace in the same word, and the public disdain for it, his interest in pasta-loving Italians was ahead of the times. And by 1700, less than a century after Thomas Coryat returned from Italy with the table fork, the fork was gaining acceptance across Europe.
Until the beginning of the 19th century, most of the forks used in general were two teeth.
King of France XIV in 1669. Louis banned all pointed forks and knives used at the dinner table, allowing only those with rounded ends to reduce the potential for violence. This new way of thinking quickly spread to other European countries, including England, and in the early 18th century, even knives imported to the American colonies were produced with blunt ends.
The fork found widespread use in England in the 18th century, and the use of fork accompanying every bite was included in the etiquette. As seen in a text written in these years, it was highly adopted;
“The only thing that will take the bite to the mouth is the fork and spoon; never lick or eat the knife. If using a knife and fork together, always keep the ends of the fork facing down and push the food towards the fork. It may be necessary to use mashed potatoes to stick the peas to the fork, but it is wrong to turn the fork and ladle.”
The widespread use of forks has also led to changes in the wills, and custom-made forks have been added to the willed values.
“Fingers may have a history that inspired forks and hands for knives; forget knives and spoons and focus only on the fork,” Jonathan Swift wrote in 1738.
As the popularity of the fork increased, its shape also changed, and instead of two-toothed forks, 3- or even 4- 5 - 6 toothed forks were used to grasp food more easily. In order to prevent the food from slipping, the fork designs were bent a little inward as we still use it today, and different designs were tried to make it easier to use. The new shape of the fork and its convenient function led to a remarkable change in the design of tableware, the tradition of eating with a fork was brought to America, paving the way for a usage process that has survived to the present day.
Fork designs have emerged in different forms over the centuries.
In the 1800s, the famous French gastronome Brillat Savarin prioritized the fork in his writings on table manners and in developing a food culture centered on etiquette , and said that using a fork is as important as keeping the dining room warm.
The invention of silver plating techniques was also effective on forks, and those who could not afford pure silver tried to appear wealthy to their guests with plated sets. Designs of different forks for eating salads, cakes, fish, oysters and lobsters have been added to the special boxed cutlery sets that are chasing collectors today; The distribution of food to the plates with a serving fork began to be seen as a sign of courtesy.
Both spoon, fork and knife design; “sporty”
In 1874, a US citizen, Samuel W. Francis, patented his invention with a cutlery tip, which could also function as a spoon with a deep inside and a knife with a sharpened side, under the name of “spork”. Spork was not produced much, but it was presented as if it would lighten the bags of soldiers, passengers and students who went to war during the busy days of the industrial revolution in Victorian Europe; It created a stir, albeit for a short time.
Plastic cutlery was invented in 1940, but it did not attract much attention. In the 1960s, when the Fast Food industry exploded and spread all over the world, forks made of plastic designed for single use were remembered. Although the use of spork, which was brought to the agenda again, was persistently tried to be used because it reduced costs, -I think- it did not work well, people -I think- could not get used to it.
Plastic dinnerware was preferred in prisons and mental hospitals because they could not be easily turned into weapons, and the contradictory models made by minds trying to produce pieces with more complex designs became the ornaments of collections years later. As it was announced in the past years, thanks to single-use plastics polluting our oceans, if no action is taken, by 2050, there will be more plastic dinnerware than fish in the oceans.
Is using a fork a measure of civilization and development?
Of course, we all give the same answer to this question. Isn't the use of forks one of the first acquisitions we try to teach our children who start to eat on their own?
What we call table manners should not be new! As it is understood from scientific researches and ancient sources that have reached our day, since our ancestors who were hunter-gatherers, eating has had a function other than satiating, and the unity of the table has also provided fusion. The preparation and presentation of foods, the ones used while eating and the behavior at the table have evolved in the development of ritualistic practices respected by everyone from the palace to the people living in the countryside, and even the transition of customs has been seen between societies.
Of course, there is also a cultural aspect to this business; I felt that it should not be overlooked, at the table of my friends with a very high cultural level, whom I had to sit at the table in India. The facial expressions of my friends, whom they knew would be very happy if I joined their table, reminded them that they ate in the traditional way, and the facial expressions when they asked the waiter with a bow tie to open a special service for me—as if—explained what the differences in table manners meant. When I returned the waiter's service and started eating like them, it was as if the ice had melted, cultures had fused, and our conversation had deepened.
Using a fork can also turn into an accusatory, contemptuous behavior! The tension that started after the Justice and Law Party, which came to power with elections at the end of the same year, suspended the agreement for 50 Airbus Caracal military helicopters, which Poland wanted to buy from France, in April 2015.
First, the visit of the French President to Warsaw was cancelled, and then the offer of free accommodation and transportation in Paris was withdrawn, although the Polish delegation was promised to attend the defense fair in Paris in October 2016.
In the ensuing polemic, the Deputy Minister of Defense of Poland accused France of being "of poor quality" and said that the French had learned to use a fork from them a few centuries ago. Minister Kownacki, fork his claim III. It was based on Henry's election as the King of Poland in 1573, and then the use of the fork in France when he was installed on the throne of France; He took the subject from there and brought it to the helicopters that were not given from the fork. Some nice historians III. They say that Henry encountered the fork during a visit to Venice, but if the important thing is to fork the vineyard, the details of the job should not matter!
Different cutlery and dinnerware are among the collectors' favorites in the table-themed collections. Tableware sets are one of the most frequently seen items in auctions and on the shelves of antique shops. Everything from the special stamped to the gold plated tableware, from the tableware with which important agreements were signed to the special dinner sets of famous personalities, is carried to future generations in museums and private collections; For the enthusiasts, the ends of the forks of the past always collect something.
I wish you to collect the beauties.
As the head chef Ahmet ÖZDEMİR, I see the source:
Mr. I sincerely thank İrfan Yalın for his academic studies titled "Table Manners Spreading from Istanbul to the World; Fork What is Fork? History of Fork" and wish him success in his professional life . It will definitely be considered as an example by those who need it in Culinary History and gastronomy researches.